A quote from Matthew Hennessey, Hartford’s Big Dig, Oct. 1, 2016:
“In Connecticut as in the rest of the country, massive interstate construction projects followed President Dwight Eisenhower’s signing of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. Cities like Hartford were then suffering massive traffic congestion problems, as rising postwar incomes spurred a boom in individual car ownership. In 1949, several major insurance companies asked the engineering firm Andrews and Clark to compile an “Arterial Plan for Hartford” under the direction of New Haven native Robert Moses. “Doctors, we are told, bury their mistakes, planners by the same token embalm theirs, and engineers inflict them on their children’s children,” wrote Moses in a cover letter. It was an oddly prophetic warning from a man blamed by many for ruining New York City with his car-dependent infrastructure projects.”
For the entire article go to http://www.city-journal.org/html/hartfords-big-dig-14779.html
We might add, however, for the benefit of readers who are too young to remember these things, that the official justification for constructing the interstate highway network was defense: to facilitate military transportation in case of need. Tue, we have never seen (or heard of) Abrams tanks clanking down an Interstate, but, hey man, who are we to argues with our betters?